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08 February 2016

At Long Last, the Downton Abbey Master Set is Complete*

For the last couple of years my wife and I have been working hard at erasing the financial mistakes of our 20's and early 30's, when we built up a sizable amount of debt by buying silly things. In early 2015 we really got down to business and our balances began to shrink. It's been pretty slow at times but we've been chipping away at it and we've made consistent progress for the first time, paying down about 20% of our credit card balances since we began our program. It is really tough but every time we pay off another account it frees up that monthly payment for other things, so our standard of living gets better and we are able to pay down more of our balances every month. It's still embarrassing how much we pay in interest every month, but at least now we are taking productive measures to improve our position.

This brings us to a windfall we came into recently. After talking about it some we decided that most of the money would go straight to our worst debt, a credit card that has plagued us since the early days of our marriage. We should be able to pay off the balance on that card and be done with it forever with this money and our tax return. It's a pretty big deal, as cutting that balance will reduce our credit balance by another 15% or so. The other part of the plan was to set aside some spending money for each of us to celebrate the progress we've made and help us get through another year of paying down balances. My wife is having trouble deciding what she wants, but I have a whole list ready at all times for just such an occasion. Today's card is the first arrival from my list:

I believe it was in late 2014 that I purchased a whole case of Cryptozoic's Downton Abbey trading cards (probably one of the crazy expenditures that led to the start of our debt elimination program), hoping to put together a master set of the product. I came close, but I was still missing a few things. I picked up a couple of missing autographs from eBay and Blowout forum sellers; I was able to source the last singles from the mini parallel set from another Blowout forum member and some British sellers; I got the special binder with the exclusive wardrobe card from an online card shop; I ordered the special Non-Sport Update magazine issue with the standard promo card; and I waited a long time and spent way too much money to get the limited edition metal promo card that was only distributed at a card show in Britain.

The one thing that eluded me was a sketch card. The sketches came in two varieties; full-size sketch cards and tobacco-sized mini sketches. They are quite uncommon, falling at less than one per case. The ones that have been sitting on eBay forever are all pretty pricey. This mini-sized sketch card was the cheapest of the lot and luckily it features my favorite character from the show, Mr. Carson, the butler of Downton Abbey. The sketch was done by Gabby Untermayerova, who doesn't seem to have much of a web presence at the moment. I've had it saved in my eBay want list for what seems like years, always worrying that it would be sold before I got around to hitting the Buy It Now button. Now it's mine.

*At this point I am pretty much calling my set complete, although in theory I would still need a full-size sketch from the set to have a representation of everything available. That's going to carry a pretty big price tag, though, even for the cheapest full-size sketch available. I'll probably have to think for another year or so on that. Most of the sketches out there have already been posted for that long or more, so they'll probably still be around then. Someday I need to scan and photograph everything I've gathered and do a nice comprehensive post on the set. That's a lot of work, though, so it's going to be a while before I get around to it.

6 comments:

Best of luck in getting your credit cards paid off, its a completely vicious cycle. They're a necessary evil in my view and only for emergency use. My wife and I are in the same boat, the major expenses we had last year are now coming back to haunt us.

Congratulations on beating down the debt monster, that is a hard thing to deal with. The sketch card is really cool, I like the mini card and the tobacco style really works well with Downtown Abbey's series timeline.

I've been in your shoes. I failed to listen to my parent's advice and found myself buried in debt by the late 20's. There was a five year stretch where I lived on the bare minimum while putting everything towards my credit card(s) balance. At one point I was spending more than $500/month on interest alone.

But it was one of the greatest lessons I've ever learned. I refuse to carry a balance on my credit card ever again and when I returned to the hobby back in 2008... it was sort of a reward to myself.

We are working our way out of it, but it's pretty tough and it'll probably be another few years before we're really free and clear of everything. I wish I would have learned my lesson about ten years ago, but that's not how it worked out.

For the first time our total balance has been trending down over an extended period and we're making tangible progress. It's been nice to see different balances drop to zero and stay there.

About Me

The intention of my blogs is to focus on my hobbies, but they often wind up covering other things instead. My dormant blog, The Raz File, is centered on miniature wargames and painting. My other blog, The Raz Card Blog, is about trading cards and collectibles.